


Filth

by Joules Mer (joulesmer)



Series: Nostos [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 05:44:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4992535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joulesmer/pseuds/Joules%20Mer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The other side of the bed was empty and cold.  Its occupant was long gone, but had left a trace of cologne and shampoo on the other pillow that John rolled his face into, greedily, and inhaled.  It would have been their first morning waking up together in Baker Street.  </p><p> </p><p>  <i>Set directly after Falling and Flying, but can be read as post-Reichenbach reunion one-shot.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Filth

 

John woke slowly by degrees. First, he placed himself back in Baker Street from the smell and familiar hum of traffic outside. But not in his room; no, this was lower down, closer to the street. The smell wasn’t quite right either. It smelled of the flat, but not his bedroom, there was something more _Sherlock_ about this place. Sherlock’s bedroom, he realised, then remembered. Yes, they had gone to bed in Sherlock’s room the night before. 

The other side of the bed was empty and cold. Its occupant was long gone, but had left a trace of cologne and shampoo on the other pillow that John rolled his face into, greedily, and inhaled. It would have been their first morning waking up together in Baker Street. Where was Sherlock? 

John reluctantly raised his head and found the small clock on Sherlock’s night table. Ten o’clock: he’d massively overslept; not that there was anywhere in particular to go. The house was still, only the faintest of murmurs from downstairs: Mrs. Hudson had the radio on, most likely. John stretched, rolled out of bed and into his bathrobe before shuffling into the front room. 

He’d half expected to find Sherlock on the sofa, fingers steepled as he silently sorted his mind palace, but there were only a few motes of dust floating in the light from the window. Alone: John was a little disappointed. It was their first full day back at Baker Street after all, and Sherlock wasn’t really supposed to be out and about on his own yet.

John was slightly mollified when he went into the kitchen and found his mug on the counter with a teabag already waiting in it. There was also a torn corner of paper with the word ‘shops’ written on it in Sherlock’s oddly precise scrawl. He made himself a cuppa and wandered back into the front room; the note didn’t have a time on it, and he couldn’t say if Sherlock had slipped from the bed twenty minutes or two hours before. 

Sherlock hadn’t returned by the time John finished the tea; and he still wasn’t back after John had showered, dressed, and made himself a plate of toast. By the time John was properly annoyed and considering going out in search of the other man, or worse, texting Mycroft, there was the familiar thud of the front door closing and the creak of Sherlock taking their stairs two at a time.

John tried not to cross his arms over his chest too firmly as Sherlock burst into the flat in a swirl of Belstaff and Sainsbury’s carrier bags.

“John.” Sherlock faltered briefly by the door, then swept towards the kitchen. “You’re up.”

“It is,” John consulted his watch, “half twelve, Sherlock. I may have overslept, but I’ve been up for almost three hours.” Sherlock was doing something in the kitchen that John couldn’t see, crashing around in the cupboards, so he continued pointedly, “I’d rather expected you’d be here when I woke up... or at least not go tearing around London without me just yet.” The crashing stopped, abruptly, and a chastened looking Sherlock reemerged in the front room. Chastened or shaken, thought John, and frowned. Had something happened?

Pacing, hardly looking at John, Sherlock explained, “I went to get a newspaper and those biscuits you like that Mycroft didn’t know to buy, and then found the city is so different,” he sounded almost distressed. “None of my markers are there, John, there was a homeless lady who isn’t in my network where Paul should have been and they put up a construction site across the alley that’s the shortcut to the shops, and then the Tesco Express isn’t there anymore, so I had to find a newsagent for the paper and then another shop for the biscuits.”

John was stuck on the first sentence, after being the sole buyer of milk for years. In a slightly strangled voice, he said, “You went to buy biscuits? You got out of bed to buy me biscuits?”

Sherlock nodded, brusquely, “And the newspaper. Keep up, John, but don’t you see: nothing was where it should be. The places aren’t there, the people aren’t there, my shortcuts aren’t there. I don’t know London, anymore, John. It’s changed.” There was a definite note of distress in his voice and he dove back into the kitchen, resuming his crashing around. There was a particularly loud thud that by its weight could only be the microscope making a reappearance on the kitchen table.

John closed his eyes for a moment, the previous direction he’d expected this conversation to go evaporating, then levered himself out of his chair and walked into the kitchen. There was a newspaper and a carrier bag with biscuits on the counter. On the table were a dozen small sandwich bags with mostly dark matter inside them.

Sherlock was focusing his microscope, ignoring John already as he shoved a slide home, one of the sandwich bags at his elbow already open and evidently the source of his first sample. As John watched, Sherlock peered intently into the lens, almost vibrating with tension and then relaxing slightly as though he’d been relieved by what he’d seen.

John leaned against the counter, giving Sherlock another minute before he asked, “What is it?”

“They’re still working on the Crossrail site at Davies Street… there’s a very particular type of clay they unearth and it gets carried on the builders’ shoes.” Sherlock removed the first slide and shoved in a second, refocusing before he announced in an even more calm tone, “And the Emperor’s Moon will have failed another health inspection, judging by the back alley.”

John frowned in confusion, “Wait, is this dirt? Have you been collecting _dirt_?”

Sherlock gave a noncommittal shrug without looking up, “To most people it’s just filth.”

John raised an eyebrow and cocked his head in disbelief, “You collected ‘filth’ samples?”

Sherlock did turn around then, picking up a new slide and waving it at John, “Oh, but these are so much more.”

“Looks like filth to me.”

The comment was met with an eyeroll and a snort, “These are gravel and clay and pollen and brick dust and everything I need to know who has been where. To know where they are building and where they are digging. Don’t you see, John, the city has changed while I’ve been gone. I’m at a disadvantage until I can get back under its skin. London is like a great cesspool into which all kinds of criminals, agents and drifters are irresistibly drained. Certain people are markers, but so are certain _things_ , certain _places_. London has changed without me, John, and I need to know it again.” With that, he raised the next slide to his face, gave it an experimental sniff, and then the tip of his tongue darted out and touched the black material.

“Oi!” John flung out a forestalling hand, “None of that!”

Sherlock rolled his eyes again, but lowered the slide, “It’s hardly toxic.”

“If you want me to continue to kiss that mouth, Sherlock: none of that. I am _not_ kissing any mouth that’s been that near the tideway. Not even yours.”

“Oh please,” Sherlock spun on the chair to turn back to the microscope as he said, “the tideway is bag four.”

Effectively dismissed, and knowing that it would be useless to try to continue the conversation until Sherlock had finished cataloguing his filth samples, John took the packet of biscuits and wandered back to his chair in the front room. They were his favourites, although he couldn’t remember ever having mentioning it before. 

John bit into a biscuit, ignoring the small shower of crumbs. He’d have preferred to wake up with Sherlock still in the bed, but, he supposed, dating Sherlock Holmes? Well… he should have known what he was in for.


End file.
